Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio: The Individual in the Village Dr ...

Damascus University Journal, Vol.٢٠, No. (١+٢), ٢٠٠٤ 

Kutrieh 

Ahmad Ramez 

Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio: The Individual in 

the Village 

Dr. Ahmad Ramez Kutrieh * 

Abstract 

Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio presents images of village life at a time 

of transition from pre-motor times of harmonious living to a new time 

where the individual, diminished, cannot affirm his identity; in fact the 

individual has become abnormal, a grotesque. A close examination of the 

work reveals Anderson’s concern to highlight the danger of having 

individuals steer away from the common practices and values of their 

fellow villagers. The extreme forms of individualism prevalent in 

Winesburg’s characters bring them unhappiness and make them unable to 

interact well or communicate satisfactorily with others. 

* Department of English, College of Arts, King Saud University 

٣٧

Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio: The Individual in the Village 

In Winesburg, Ohio, Sherwood Anderson reflects on his youthful 

experiences in a small society that is undergoing change. He writes about 

the village at a pre-motor time and portrays this society lyrically infusing 

his work with warm feelings towards the village and its people. A major 

feature of Winesburg is its small size. Its population forms a social group 

where individuals are aware of their position and the relationship that 

exists between the individual and the social group. Anderson portrays 

social settings that were changing in the rural Midwestern villages of the 

late ١٩th century /early twentieth century. However, the major concern 

of the Winesburg stories lies in the characters. Interestingly, the basic 

issue discussed in the book, individualism, has drawn some critical 

attention since it is one of the most highly prized qualities in American 

culture. I believe that Anderson portrays individuals suffering from an 

extreme emphasis on individualism that has made them unhappy 

grotesques. The weight put on individualism brings them unhappiness. 

They lack fulfillment, feel separate, lonely, and unable to communicate. 

Although the book talks about the village before WWI, it was 

written during the devastation of the war that changed the way the 

citizens of the western world thought of themselves and their place in the 

universe. If the possibility for an individual to make a mark on the world 

existed and heroism and acts of valor were thought to be possible before 

the war, the general breakdown of these notions by the war left many 

thinking of their landscape as a “wasteland.” It is through the prism or 

retrospect that Winesburg shows that the people of the village, the solid 

bedrock of American culture, have been losing the pastoral tranquility 

afforded by common values and shared outlooks on life. The emphasis 

on the infectious and ebullient individualism of Emerson, Thoreau, and 

Whitman appear to have twisted and thwarted Man’s ability to be 

effective fulfilled individuals capable of meaningful thought and action. 

Winesburg, Ohio was warmly received when it appeared in ١٩١٩ 

and its writer was hailed as a fresh new voice, and a rebel. The book was 

seen as showing Anderson to belong to the group of writers who 

criticized life in the villages of the Midwest (Blankenship ٦٥٦). The 

book received a good share of attention and analysis that according to 

Walter Rideout has fluctuated from one decade to another in the twentieth 

century. Anderson was first looked at as a rebel to be praised, then a 

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Ahmad Ramez 

confused, failing and intellectually deficient talent, and finally 

reevaluated in the sixties and seventies as a sort of poetic voice. This 

reevaluation continued into the eighties and nineties. Towards the end of 

the century, Winesburg was listed number twenty-four among the best 

books of the century (D. Anderson, “Visual Images” ٦١). 

The early reviewers of Winesburg pointed out Anderson's concern 

with the village. The reviewer in The New Republic, expressed his 

admiration of one story and struck a note to be repeated many times. He 

said that the theme of Anderson is "the loneliness of human life, the 

baffled search of every personality for meanings and purposes deeper 

than anything that may be said or done . . ."(٣٦). For instance, 

immediately after Anderson's death in ١٩٤١, Burgess Meredith wrote that 

Anderson was quite aware of small town life as he saw its limitations, its 

ugliness and pettiness, yet he saw its beauty, its courage in its continuing 

“struggle for a freer life"(١٣٩). Waldo Frank summed up the attitude of 

many scholars towards Winesburg by suggesting that "It has become a 

critical commonplace that Winesburg faithfully portrays the Midwest 

village of two thousand souls during the post civil-war pre-motor 

age"(٤٤). 

In the fifties, a different attitude was struck by Russell Blankenship 

who declared Anderson as belonging to the revolt camp "against the 

standardization of his native habitat . . ."(٦٧٠).٢ Similarly, Irving Howe 

suggested: "The book conveys a vision of American life as a depressed 

landscape cluttered with dead stumps, twisted oddities, grotesque and 

pitiful wrecks"(١٠٦). He complained about the absence of round 

characters in the book which makes it possible to read it "as a fable of 

American estrangement"(١٠٨).٣ 

The more recent assessments are more sympathetic. Since the 

middle seventies, a society of interested scholars began publishing a 

periodical dedicated to Anderson. Many studies of Anderson have also 

appeared in the publications of the Society of MidAmerican Literature. 

An example of sympathetic studies is that of Fludernik who finds through 

a discussion of the metaphors of Winesburg, that the message of the book 

is an "equation of art with love and its celebration of human love over 

and above the external aspects of life . . ."(١١٨). 

٣٩


Anderson did not label Winesburg a novel. The book has no one 

central protagonist. Yet, it has always been treated as a unified work that 

has thematic unity, sustained tone, and one narrative consciousness 

informing the reader about the secrets of the inhabitants of the town. The 

different chapters have titles and they deal with different characters. 

They can be seen as separate short stories, and are often published 

separately as autonomous units. However, the intertwining stories of 

these characters, in terms of theme and treatment and in the appearance of 

many of the characters in more than one story, argues for the treatment of 

the book as a unified work. The intertextuality of the stories is evident 

throughout. Some of the stories can be sequenced differently and yet the 

overall effect would remain the same. "Departure," is an exception since 

it gives the narrative its closure and thus cannot be sequenced differently 

without changing the impact of the work. However, whether "Drink" or 

"Adventure" come before or after "Death" does not greatly affect the 

overall impact of each. The effect these stories have on the reader is 

achieved cumulatively and not incrementally. Whether reading the 

chapters separately or as a group the readers would receive essentially the 

same impact. Yet, of this collection, no story is so dependent on the 

others that it would be unintelligible if read alone. One can, however, ask 

about the reason Anderson put his narrative in this form. 

In most chapters, different moments in the lives of the characters 

happen simultaneously and segmenting these moments into different 

chapters highlights these moments. In fact, this segmentation highlights 

the separateness of the characters and their living in their own individual 

worlds. In each of these stories, Anderson’s descriptions seem at first 

glance to be only attempting to give the background for the action that is 

taking place or will take shape. The reader gradually sees that the 

descriptions that are abundant throughout the book serve to heighten the 

reader's awareness of the moment. The scenes dramatize the moment that 

seems as if it is always the immediate present leaving the future and the 

past beyond any significance. The reader encounters one character at one 

moment struggling with his/her separateness and inability to achieve 

understanding by others or to think that success is achievable. 

Anderson emphasizes the importance of the present moment over 

any other. It is in this moment that he highlights the details of life, the 

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Kutrieh 

Ahmad Ramez 

little things that make his characters cognizant of their being alive, when 

they realize the enormous possibilities and potentials of the moment, 

potential that remain elusive and beyond their reach, yet they feel the 

vibrancy of life. This vibrancy makes even less fulfilled because of their 

inability to do anything with their feelings and ideas. It may seem at first 

that Anderson is providing simple descriptions of his hometown. The 

reader soon realizes that the descriptions are most often non-specific and 

could be descriptions of any small midwestern town or village. The 

descriptions serve also to dramatize the moment making the past and the 

future irrelevant. These time disconnected moments, show time frozen 

and heighten the readers' sense of these moments. Anderson keeps 

presenting the significant moments to show that the life that matters is the 

present. It is living, not having lived, that matters. His narrative never 

varies from dwelling on the moments of life the characters experience. 

Every story is constructed around these moments and descriptions. For 

example, in "The Thinker," Seth walks with Helen White under the trees. 

The reader is told, 

Heavy clouds had drifted across the face of the 

moon, and before them in the deep twilight went 

a man with a short ladder upon his shoulder. 

Hurrying forward, the man stopped at the street 

crossing and, putting the ladder against the 

wooden lamp-post, lighted the village lights so 

that their way was half lighted, half darkened, by 

the lamps and by the deepening shadows cast by 

the low branched trees. In the tops of the trees 

the wind began to play, disturbing the sleeping 

birds so that they flew about calling plaintively. 

In the lighted space before one of the lamps, two 

bats wheeled and circled, pursuing the gathering 

swarm of night flies. (١٦٧) 

In "Sophistication," George and Helen White go to the grandstand of 

the fair grounds. The narrator informs us that the two are sitting there at 

that lonely place, and then moves on to say, 

In Winesburg the crowded day had run itself out 

into the long night of late fall. Farm horses 

٤١


jogged away along lonely country roads pulling 

their portion of weary people. Clerks began to 

bring samples of goods in off the sidewalks and 

lock the doors of stores. In the Opera House a 

crowd had gathered to see a show and further 

down Main Street the fiddlers, their instruments 

tuned, sweated and worked to keep the feet of 

youth flying over a dance floor. (٣١٥-٣١٦) 

Both instances do not advance the narrative or tell us anything about 

the two characters. Life is happening, and the passages lyrically heighten 

the moment the characters are living. At the same time, these characters 

are not part of that communal life of the village. They are alone 

observing that life and not being part of it. 

Often the descriptions are full of sensory images that carve their 

impression on the imagination of the reader and bring the scene to life. 

Anderson depicts scenes that are full of the activities of living, activities 

that are simple and happen every night and dusk. The details do not 

affect the progress of the story. They bring it “live.” In "Mother," the 

narrator tells us that when son and mother sat together in the evening, 

Darkness came on and the evening train came in 

at the station. In the street below feet tramped up 

and down upon a broad sidewalk. In the station 

yard, after the evening train had gone, there was 

a heavy silence. Perhaps Skinner Leason, the 

express agent, moved a truck the length of the 

station platform. Over on Main Street sounded a 

man's voice, laughing. The door of the express 

office banged. George Willard arose and 

crossing the room fumbled for the door-knob. 

Sometimes he knocked against a chair, making it 

scrape the floor. (٢٨) 

A clear attempt is made in this passage to evoke the sounds of the 

place. Although it is not as lyrical in language as the passage from "The 

Thinker" the lyricism of incidents palpably shows that life is going on; 

the silence existing between the two on the scene, in contrast, is void of 

any communication.١ 

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Kutrieh 

Ahmad Ramez 

Descriptions are made to paint the canvas of the scene but often 

seem to add nothing to the forward movement of the narrative. Quite the 

contrary, they freeze that movement. Incidents that went on before are 

mentioned often and what the characters are planning to do is also 

mentioned but it is the present moment that is fixed in the mind and 

occupies front stage. One can argue, that this is the way Anderson 

shows his love for the village he is writing about. It is a keen awareness 

of the little things of life in the village, the things that constitute all that 

the characters of the village have and know. These little things function 

often to create almost a visceral response in the reader who is bound to 

respond to some of the little things that are mentioned because they come 

out of universal human experience. Anderson's description of the fight of 

a shop owner with a cat comes out of the experience of anyone who 

observed cats with any interest sometime in life. There are many more 

examples. 

The setting compounds the feeling of loneliness and separateness 

of the characters. The scene of George and Helen White in 

"Sophistication" as they sit in the darkness of the grandstand is a good 

example. They have gone up to the hill in the Fairground. "The feeling 

of loneliness and isolation that had come to the young man in the 

crowded streets of his town was both broken and intensified by the 

presence of Helen. What he felt was reflected in her”(٢٣٢). The fair had 

been held a day before and the fair ground stand gave them a special 

feeling. “The sensation is one never to be forgotten. On all sides are 

ghosts, not of the dead, but of living people. Here . . . People have come 

with their families and gathered and filled the place with life--but now the 

life has all gone away. The silence is almost terrifying”(٢٣٢). 

Readers remain aware of the vast frustration, lack of fulfillment, 

deficiency of communion, and simply the general absence of happiness in 

the characters’ lives in Anderson's book. There are however two nonrepresentative 

cases that show some hope for happiness .٤ Dr. Reefy and 

Elizabeth Willard, we are told in "Death," had a chance to have genuine 

love between them for they were communicating well with each other 

during Elizabeth's visit to the doctor's office. However, a chance passerby 

shatters that possibility quickly. In "Paper Pills," the other 

relationship with happiness also involves Dr. Reefy. He married a tall 

٤٣


dark girl after he talked with her in his office about her victimization by 

her suitor. In return, she listened to his peculiar ideas that he wrote on the 

little pieces of paper. Events of the courtship and death of this girl after 

her quick marriage happened in the past; these details of the relationship 

occupy only a short passage of the story. 

George feels happy with himself in "Nobody Knows," a story 

concerning Louise Trunnion. But it is a twisted affair that degrades 

human relationships and colors the character of George. He manages to 

sleep with Louise but is relieved that no one saw them together and in 

that way, she has “nothing on him.” He had taken advantage of Louise 

sexually without having any emotional attachment to her. The escapade 

shows, one can argue, his inability to interact with a member of the 

opposite sex on an equal basis. There are other thwarted sexual feelings 

in other stories. There is the Reverend Curtis Hartman, in "The Strength 

of God," peeps from the church glass window to watch the undressed 

neighbor Kate Swift. There is also Alice Hindman in "Adventure," who 

was slept with her and left to the city with promises he did not keep and 

she is who left to live a lonely life. 

Marriage in Winesburg does not offer married people a chance to get 

out of their loneliness or offer the chance to communicate with their 

spouse. The most significant marriage in the book is that of Elizabeth and 

Tom Willard who are unable to communicate or to view things the same 

way. The differences between them drive Elizabeth to think of killing her 

husband in order to save her son from following his father’s advice. 

There is no marriage in Winesburg that is a happy except that brief one of 

Dr. Reefy's. 

Romantic relationships suffer also in Winesburg. Seth and Helen's 

relationship was not meant to be because of the inability of each to 

communicate with the other. The relationship of Louise Bentley with 

John Hardy in "Godliness" is an example of a failed relationship that ends 

in a failed marriage. In "An Awakening," the triangle of Belle Carpenter, 

Ed Handby, and George Willard proves the inability of any two of them 

to have a normal love relationship. Ed wants to propose to Belle but 

instead threatens her. George thinks that he was grown enough to be 

thought of as a suitable companion for Belle only to be toyed with by Ed 

in front of Belle who does not know for sure what she wants. 

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Kutrieh 

Ahmad Ramez 

Most of the characters of Winesburg have trouble communicating 

with others. Several critics have mentioned the fact that the characters of 

Winesburg seek out George Willard to tell him their stories.٥ This 

narrative device allows the readers to hear the inner thoughts of the 

characters as they confide in George. Since George is the journalist who 

wants to become a writer, it is often assumed that he represents young 

Sherwood before leaving his little Ohio town for Chicago, as does 

George at the end of the book.٦ George is always roaming the streets as 

a reporter looking for news to publish in the town paper. It seems natural 

for him to be the one to listen to the stories of the characters. But some 

of the characters have trouble speaking even to him. Moments of 

awkward silence are evident several times in several stories. 

Elizabeth Willard, George's mother, is unable to express her wishes 

and dreams to her son. In "Mother," the reader is told, "The communion 

between George Willard and his mother was outwardly a formal thing 

without meaning”(٢٦). "In the evening when the son sat in the room with 

his mother, the silence made them both feel awkward”(٢٨). When they 

talk later in the story he tells her, "I suppose I can't make you understand, 

but oh, I wish I could." When he tells her that he wants to leave 

Winesburg, she wanted to express herself by crying with joy but could 

not accomplish that form of non-verbal communication. Again, silence 

becomes unbearable to her. To manage the moment, she sends him 

outdoors among the boys(٣٧). When she dies, close to the end of the 

book, she had not been able to tell him about her hidden money, money 

that could improve her son's life and take him away from her husband. 

Nilsen Gokcen’s argument in his dissertation is that the characters of 

Winesburg strive to break the barriers between them and others but there 

is a lack of communication and as a result self-fulfillment is never 

completed. 

The difficulty to communicate faced by Anderson's characters 

highlights the way they relate to their community. They are separate, 

think differently from others, and have their own separate dreams, a 

pattern that has its mark on them all. They match each other in being out 

of harmony with the society of the Midwestern village. This situation of 

Anderson's characters would seem even more pronounced if his treatment 

of them is compared with that of other writers' characters who are placed 

٤٥


in a village and who gain strength and comfort from their village 

community. Many writers of the post civil war era looked at the villages 

as a place where all citizens work in comfort and happiness. Positive 

images of the village are found, for example, in the works of Booth 

Tarkington among others. For the most part, these writers presented the 

village as "a place of idyllic felicities"(Blankenship ٦٥٠). The village is 

portrayed that way in other literatures when the circumstances portrayed 

are similar to those of Anderson’s Winesburg: pre-industrial stage where 

the community of the village acts according to clear patterns of conduct 

and the values of its citizens are almost identical. These villages do not 

have room for individuals, but rather in their pastoral setting, the 

characters resemble each other in deed and thought. But the village is not 

presented this way in Anderson's book. 

Anderson's characters are obsessed with their own reality. The 

positive quality that individualism once carried has become exaggerated, 

distorted, and simply grotesque. One of the major influences on the 

youths of Anderson's period was Robert Ingersoll's lectures on gods and 

on humanity where he declares: "Every human being should take a road 

of his own.... Every mind should think, investigate and conclude for 

itself"(Gregory ٦). Ingersoll was echoing Emerson who stated in "Self- 

Reliance," "To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for 

you in your private heart is true for all men, --that is genius”( McMichael 

٤٩٥). Emerson was making the grand statement of American 

individualism that influenced generations of his compatriots. Later in the 

essay he says, "There is a time in every man's education when he arrives 

at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he 

must take himself for better for worse as his portion..."( McMichael ٤٩٦). 

He also states, "Whoso would be a man, must be a nonconformist.” “No 

law can be sacred to me but that of my nature”(McMichael ٤٩٧). It seems 

Anderson had these thoughts in mind when he wrote his definition not of 

individualism but of the grotesque: 

… the moment one of the people took one of the 

truths to himself, called it his truth, and tried to 

live his life by it, he became a grotesques and the 

truth he embraced a falsehood. (٥) 

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Kutrieh 

Ahmad Ramez 

Anderson's characters have their own truths that make them 

grotesques, separate, and unable to commune with others. Even the 

minor characters of the book are grotesques. We are told that the old 

carpenter who fixes the writer’s bed is mentioned in the first story only 

"because he, like many of what are called very common people, became 

the nearest thing to what is understandable and lovable of all the 

grotesques in the writer's book”(٥-٦). George Willard, the young 

reporter, hears their stories. He hears with the adult Anderson’s ears; his 

empathy for the pitiable grotesques drives him to write about their plight. 

The individual in Winesburg feels lonely and isolated even 

among crowds (٣١٣). Even when George is with Helen White, the 

feeling of loneliness is intensified. He wants individualism to take over 

not only his life but also that of others. He tells Helen, "I want you today 

to be different from other women”(٣٠٨). His mother is no different: her 

individuality prompts her to get hold of an idea when she is on a ride one 

spring afternoon. 

Thoughts came and I wanted to get away from 

my thoughts. I began to beat the horse...I wanted 

to get out of town, out of my clothes, out of my 

marriage, out of my body out of everything. 

(٢٩٤) 

She wanted "to run away from everything." but wanted "to 

run towards something too"(٢٩٤). 

Anderson was not just describing grotesque characters of the village 

but was showing the failure of the emphasis on individualism. Such 

emphasis leads to the excesses that one sees in the characters of 

Winesburg. Total absorption with inner light does not illuminate his 

characters’ way towards salvation and fulfillment but to isolation and 

frustration. There is no way for that individual to accomplish anything 

alone when separated from his society. A society of individuals, 

Winesburg shows us, is not a society but a group of individuals who live 

side by side without having the same goals, outlook on life, or genuine 

concern for others. Some characters of Winesburg are capable of 

stepping out of their separate existences to show signs that not everything 

is totally lost when they do show concern for others and stop thinking 

about their obsessive ideas that keep them apart. The reader sees this in 

٤٧


few instances in "Departure," "Paper Pills," and "Godliness." The ideal 

of an individual human being who is capable of almost limitless 

achievement is an ideal the characters aspire to but are incapable of 

achieving. The world is too much for these individuals who are often 

turned into grotesques. While this does not take away all the beauty out 

of their lives, they have diminished in size. The characters are under a 

great deal of stress due to standing alone and separate; as a result, they 

become odd and suffer from the lack of support of others. To them, 

uniqueness has become a curse. 

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Kutrieh 

Ahmad Ramez 

Endnotes 

١. The Boston Transcript makes this observation through the title of 

its review, "Ohio Small Town Life: Commonplace People and Their 

Everyday Existence." (W.S.B. Boston Transcript, ١١ June ١٩١٩, p. ٦ 

quoted in Ray Lewis White, Compiler. The Merrill Studies in 

Winesburg, Ohio. Columbus, Ohio: Charles E. Merrill Publishing Co., 

١٩٧١, p.٣٠) Another review that appeared in The New Republic is titled, 

"A Country Town." The reviewer finds that "the stories are homely and 

unsympathetic" (M.A. "A Country Town" The New Republic, XIX(June 

٢٥, ١٩١٩), ٢٥٧, ٢٦٠ reprinted in The Merrill Studies in Winesburg, Ohio, 

٣٦). 

٢. Many writers of the post civil war era looked at the village as a 

place where all citizens work in comfort and happiness. Positive images 

of the village are found, for example, in the works of Booth Tarkington 

among others. For the most part, these writers presented the village as "a 

place of idyllic felicities"(٦٥٠). But the village is not presented this way 

in Anderson's book. 

٣. Horace Gregory, suggested that despite the fact the stories of 

Winesburg are "set in the remembered atmosphere of a small town in 

America,” they “have a "universal"quality," yet he finds the scene 

depicted to be close "to the roots of an American heritage . . ." (٤). Even 

in the eighties one scholar comments that "Critics have concentrated, for 

the most part, on the subject of small-town life in the Midwest . . . or 

isolation . . . " (Fludernik ١١٦). 

٤. Waldo Frank notes that the book has no happily married people, 

no communion with children, no fulfilled sex, no normal social life, no 

worship in congregation, no strength in organized religion, no joy, and no 

maturing characters for the traditions and social structures on which the 

world builds itself are lacking in Anderson's town (٤٥). 

٥. Alan Steven Berkowitz suggests in his dissertation that Anderson 

explored the isolation, lonliness and failure hidden in the American 

village that gradually lost its agrarian values of charity and community. 

٦. David Anderson in “Another Look at Community in Winesburg, 

Ohio” argues that Sherwood Anderson “focused on the failures of 

individuals to have their performances affirmed . . .”(٧٩). These 

performances are “some sort of singularity”(٧٨). 

٤٩


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Received ٢٦/٣/٢٠٠٢. 

٥٢


Kutrieh 

Ahmad Ramez 

Abstract 

The paper argues that Sherwood Anderson’s Winesburg, Ohio 

presents images of village life at a period of transition marked by change 

from pre-motor times of harmonious living to a new era when individual 

identities twisted by extreme individualism can no longer be affirmed. 

The paper concludes that Anderson highlights the problems faced by 

those individuals who chose to steer away from the common practices of 

their fellow villagers. Further, Anderson illustrates through his characters 

that excessive individualistic behavior results in unhappiness. Individuals 

become unable to interact well or communicate effectively with others. 

٥٣

Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio: The Individual in the Village Dr ...

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